A fresh round of DNA testing is going forward in the case of Robert Breest, who was convicted of murder 35 years ago and has maintained his innocence ever since.

In 1973, Breest was convicted of murdering 19-year-old Susan Randall, whose half-naked body was found on the ice of the Merrimack River in East Concord in February 1971.

The evidence at trial included eyewitness accounts of people who saw Randall hitchhiking in Manchester and getting into a car similar to Breest's, a jailhouse informant who said Breest had confessed to him, and physical evidence of paint chips that matched Breest's car found on Randall's coat and of fibers that matched her coat found in his car.

In recent years, Breest, now 70, has fought for and obtained three rounds of DNA testing, two of which were inconclusive and one of which narrowed the field of suspects to 10 percent of white men. Breest was among that 10 percent.

This month, Breest's attorneys and prosecutors hammered out a deal on a new round of DNA testing of samples from Randall's fingernails, which will be tested against samples from the inside of Breest's cheek, according to papers filed in federal court.

The testing will be done at ReliaGene Technologies in New Orleans. The full process could take about a month to complete, said New York attorney Ian Dumain, who has represented Breest pro bono on his federal appeals.

"I think that this is the right outcome, and it is what Mr. Breest was after from the get-go," Dumain said.

The deal follows a ruling from federal Judge Steven McAuliffe last month turning down the state's motion to dismiss the case. He cited the stakes of the charges, the improvements in technology and the "virtually negligible burden" of providing additional tests. Breest's lawyers will pay for the tests, Dumain said.

"The state's reticence to provide a sample is difficult to understand on any principled or pragmatic basis," McAuliffe wrote.

But lawyers from the state attorney general's office have said that Randall's family needs closure after years of reliving the case.

Under the terms agreed to by lawyers for both sides, the state will pay Breest's lawyers $18,000 to defray legal costs. The terms provide that neither side will use McAuliffe's ruling from last month in future proceedings.